Hodgson, Elizabeth. "Review of The Variorum Edition of
the Poetry of John Donne, Volume 8: The Epigrams, Epithalamions,
Epitaphs, Inscriptions, and Miscellaneous Poems." Early
Modern Literary Studies 3.3 (January, 1998): 18.1-6 <URL: http://purl.oclc.org/emls/03-3/rev_hod2.html>.

John Donne, who seemed
to have been killed off by the loving ministrations
of T.S. Eliot and the New Critics, has been in recent
years resurrected as an object of serious critical
inquiry. Annabel Patterson, Katharine Eisaman Maus,
Richard Rambuss, Janel Mueller, Stanley Fish,
Jonathan Goldberg and dozens of other "newer
critics" have examined Donne's works through
feminist, queer-theory, materialist and
deconstructive filters, and Donne's political
involvements in the Jacobean state have been
reinvestigated in biographical works and editions of
his polemical prose. Such progress has been somewhat
hampered by the often-outdated editions of the texts,
though, and this is a problem which the Donne
Variorum editors are addressing here.

In publishing this
volume of Epigrams, Epithalamions,
Epitaphs, Inscriptions, and Miscellaneous Poems second, the editors of the
Donne Variorum project cast new light on two
important sets of texts: the epithalamions and the
epigrams. The epithalamia, because they are so
clearly political in motivation while also focused on
the erotic relationships which are Donne's forte,
have become increasingly interesting to materialist
and feminist scholars. The epigrams have likewise
received renewed attention because of their political
content (this is true of Donne's satires as well).
Though this edition does have its flaws, its
illumination of these minor but theoretically
intriguing works through meticulous scholarship and
innovative editing makes it a tantalizing
introduction to the project.

Producing a variorum
edition in these post-liberal-humanist days is, of
course, a project fraught with ambiguity, and the
editors frankly admit that theirs is inherently a
conservative task. The variorum commentary is as
lucid and instructive as it is possible to be,
however, and it is certainly instructive to see (for
instance) how earlier scholars saw the Lincoln's Inn
epithalamium as "graceful" and
"sublime"! The editors' helpful general
summaries and inclusion of some deconstructionist,
Marxist, feminist and queer-theory readings does make
for a richer understanding of the texts. The
summaries are arranged chronologically, which doesn't
make for a very coherent survey of scholarly opinion,
though the editors do try to show connections between
various central arguments. They also make some effort
to contextualize critical work (identifying an
argument as occurring in a chapter on Stuart
epithalamia, for instance), though there are a few
points where a little more elucidation would be
helpful. Making clear in the commentary that Heather
Dubrow and Heather Ousby are the same author, for
instance, would aid readers.

But despite the Variorum
title, it is in fact the texts themselves which are
the central strength of this project. The editors
themselves clearly feel this; in conversation and in
promotional literature they focus on the newly edited
poems as their central achievement. Donne scholars
would, I think, have to agree, for this edition is
based on a large collection of new manuscript
material and an enormous amount of careful textual
scholarship. New poems, new versions of poems, and
new source-texts for poems abound. The editors have
also shown their willingness to abandon the old
copy-text model, and they provide us in a few
instances with separate texts for different but
equally authoritative versions of poems. This is most
illuminating in the case of the epigrams and
epithalamia, where the editors allow us to see
Donne's revising hand at work.

My only complaint about
the edition is that it could go further still in its
innovations. The epigrams' variant versions appear in
toto, but we only get a sample of the variations
in the epithalamia. If the editors find the
variations significant, it would seem only fair to
give the readers the opportunity to see the entire
texts of the variant epithalamia as well. The
Variorum editors have also been content to follow
traditional groupings of the Donne canon, which makes
this volume a peculiar grab-bag of major poems like
the epithalamia alongside epigrams, inscriptions, and
that helpful category "miscellaneous." The
editors argue that the series is roughly
chronological, but this final volume includes texts
written over a span of at least forty years. It would
be helpful to have a more convincing organizational
narrative to allay our suspicion that this is the
volume of poems beginning with "e."

Finally, a suggestion:
the textual apparatus in the volume is admirably
lucid, thorough, and ample. It might be helpful,
though, to have the texts presented in a more
consolidated pattern, with the extensive textual
apparatuses preceding the commentaries. Another
alternative might be to produce a "texts
only" edition later for the benefit of students
and scholars at large, so that the fruits of this
monumental labour can be available to the wider world
long after the variorum commentaries have gone out of
date. This edition does John Donne a great service,
and all the admirers of his verse should have the
chance to profit from it.